


Safety in Numbers

by Amatara



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Post Episode: s03e15, Reunions, Season/Series 03, Twin Peaks: The Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amatara/pseuds/Amatara
Summary: Cooper wakes up in a hospital bed after electrocuting himself.An unapologetic piece of wish-fulfillment, written as a missing scene set after TPTR part 15 (“There’s some fear in letting go”).





	Safety in Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Using my last chance to sneak a happy(ish) ending in between the cracks of canon...

*

The skin of his arm. He’s been staring at it ever since his eyes opened, wondering why it doesn’t seem right. It’s not the hand itself, wrapped in a bulky white gauze; it hurt when he tried to move it earlier, which made an unpleasant kind of sense, but what doesn’t make sense is the rest of the arm. It’s a strange, deep pink, with no sleeve to cover it, and it hits him that he’s shivering, goosebumps crawling across flesh, except the hairs that should be standing up straight are all gone.

His other arm comes up, unbandaged hand rubbing his forehead, then raking back across his scalp. Hair’s still there, but not how it should be, either: loose and springy, curling around his ears in a way that makes his jaw clench. It’s uncomfortable and unprofessional and plain _wrong,_ and he can only imagine what Gordon will say when he sees it…

… but that thought disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving just the name to linger.

 _Gordon_. He squints, running it through his head again. It feels important, like he’s heard it before, but he has no idea why he’s thinking of it now. Gordon… _Cole?_ The name from the movie. An old movie, jumpy black and white, beckoning him from across the room, and then the name, and a light, white and brilliant and _burning,_ his hand, his eyes, his face, his arm. No shirtsleeves, no suit, no badge on his chest… wrong, wrong, all wrong. But something is right too, something just at the edge of his mind, if he could only remember -

“ _Get Gordon Cole,_ ” he gasps, not even knowing if someone is there, hand gripping the sheets as his vision blurs. Not that it matters who heard him. Gordon will hear, and he’ll come, and he’ll make things right.

He jolts back to consciousness at the sound of a scuffle, a voice yelling shrilly from outside the door.

“That’s my _husband_ in there! That’s my _Dougie_! I don’t care who you say he is, and I don’t care if you’re FBI, that’s my husband and he stuck a fork down a socket last night and he’s hurt and if you think that - _no, I said you’re not going inside -_ ”

 _Slap._ Loud and ringing, and then a second time, _slap,_ flesh against flesh, accompanied by a pained, angry, breathless sigh.

“Come on, lady.” Whoever says it makes it sound like a challenge. “Hit me again if you want to. I’ve taken punches before but never with as much pleasure, knowing what’s behind that door -”

Then a second voice cuts off the first one, sounding like it’s booming straight into his ear: “APOLOGIES FOR ALBERT -”

And he realizes he’s shaking, heart beating too fast for his lungs to follow, the monitor beside him giving a faint, warning beep as his arms spasm and his eyes roll back and everything starts to go hazy.

“Albert,” he moans, choking on saliva, and then he can’t say anything anymore.

The door slams open and all he sees is a silhouette - tall balding figure with coat tails flying, rushing towards the side of the bed. He watches the man’s lips move with no sound coming out; he feels very strange and very tired and then his stomach turns and he’s coughing up acid all over the man’s coat.

“Cooper,” the man rasps, and then, “Coop, it’s all right, you’re all right…” He keeps it up like a mantra as he checks the now-silent monitors, not even glancing at his ruined coat and what Cooper just did to it…

Cooper just did to it...

 _Cooper_ just did.

There are tears on his cheeks that he can’t remember getting there, but nothing about it feels the slightest bit wrong. _Dougie_ is what the lady - Janey-E, his _wife_ \- called him, but he isn’t Dougie and that’s not his wife and he’s sobbing now, overwhelmed and frozen, and he can’t breathe properly but somehow he can, reaching for the man’s hand and squeezing it in his own.

The look he gets in return tells him everything he needed to know. He knows this man, like he knows himself, and none of this is coincidence. He called out for help, but help was already here.

“Apologies... Albert,” he whispers, scrubbing at his eyes with his uninjured hand. He’s echoed people's words back at them so often that it’s easy to just go on doing it. Except Albert didn’t speak these words to him, but… “Gordon? Gordon Cole?”

“ONE AND THE SAME,” someone says - or rather, shouts, the sheer volume of the words leaving his eardrums ringing. It’s him. An older, greyer, more weathered version of him, though not quite as gaunt in the face as Albert, watching them intently from a few feet away. Peering from behind his shoulder, a woman is standing with shock in her eyes.

“Dougie?” she whispers, but he shakes his head.

“Not… Dougie.” It feels strange, speaking words that no one put into his mouth. Strange, yet right. "Not Dougie but…” He looks at Albert, helplessly.

“Dale,” Albert says, voice raw and wobbling as he blinks, looking down at their still-clasped hands. “Dale.” More strongly now, with a hint of satisfaction. “ _Coop_.” He swallows, shudders, closes his eyes.

“It’s all right,” Dale murmurs, not really sure who he’s saying it to. He focuses on the woman in the background - the woman who used to be Dougie’s wife. “These are friends,” he says slowly. “They’re here because they were called.”

“WE CERTAINLY ARE.” Gordon takes a step towards them, a long look passing between him and Albert that Dale can’t parse. “AND I HATE TO INTERRUPT THIS POIGNANT MOMENT, BUT WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME.”

Albert nods, depositing Dale’s hand on top of the sheets. Every bit a professional again, apart from the simmering fire in his eyes. “He’s right, Coop. We have it on good authority that some folks are on their way to kill you. _More_ folks, I should say. Seems there’s quite a lineup already.”

Janey-E’s head bobs up and down. “There was a man, before. Dougie took care of him. You should have seen it, it was so wonderful… But if more are coming, we shouldn’t -”

“ _Dale,_ ” Dale interrupts. “Not Dougie.” And yes, he does remember that. The small, armed man approaching them on the stairs, the rush of adrenalin pouring through him at the sight of the raised gun. He feels a similar energy bubbling up in him now, watching his friends watch him as if expecting him to burst into flame. “I’m not afraid,” he says, and means it.

“Coop, with all respect…” And it’s a measure of how well he knows this man that the words sound exactly like _you idiot that you are,_ said with a love that takes his breath away. “I really think you should be.”

“I should be,” he admits, the smile that tugs at his mouth wide and giddy and almost painful in its awkwardness. He hasn’t smiled like this in a very long time.

The fear will come, he knows. Sorrow will come, and death and loss and struggle, and everything else that he can’t begin to wrap his mind around… But it’s not coming just yet. For now, he’s real and alive and _found_. And if part of him is still hurting too, it’s the kind of pain that finds a balm in knowing that, whatever storm is coming, he won’t face it alone.

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> *fandom group hug*   
> Just three episodes to go... Hope you enjoyed this little piece, see you all on the other side!


End file.
